


you can hear it in the silence (you're in love)

by C_AND_B



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-23
Updated: 2017-12-23
Packaged: 2019-02-19 01:43:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13113273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/C_AND_B/pseuds/C_AND_B
Summary: "Kara who always makes her feel trusted, and believed in, and safe. Kara who makes her glance up at a shooting star and make a wish. Kara whose frame is sturdy but soft. Kara whose slight touch makes a shiver run down her spine. Kara who she’s fairly sure she’ll be irrevocably in love with before she can figure out a way to stop it.She might already be too late."(the evolution of Kara and Lena's relationship alongside the lyrics of 'you are in love')





	you can hear it in the silence (you're in love)

**Author's Note:**

> so someone asked for a fic inspired by you are in love by Taylor Swift and apparently this is the result - I hope it's what you were looking for. 
> 
> Obviously for the purpose of this I've gayed up the pronouns and have ignored a large part of the season 3 canon. But other than that, sorry for any mistakes and as per hope it's not shit. And happy holidays I guess!!

**_One look, dark room meant just for you, time moved too fast, you play it back, buttons on a coat, light-hearted joke, no proof, not much, but you saw enough._ **

It’s all a little blurry.

She has the general gist of it all. Fear. Misplaced hope. Betrayal. The familiar realisation that Lillian never really cared for her like Lena had always hoped she might. The familiar sting of coming to the conclusion that she was never going to be as good as the wonder child, that she would always be stuck under a cloud of a family whose views she didn’t even share. The less familiar, and hauntingly unforgettable remembrance that she really was a Luthor by blood, that maybe, after enough time, she would inevitably succumb to those particular beliefs.

Panic.

Pain.

Explosion.

She can picture the last part with a hazy kind of clarity. The green cloud. Wind billowing through her hair and strong arms wrapped around her frame, cradling her to an inhuman kind of heat. _Supergirl_. Supergirl carried her out. At least that meant she wasn’t dead, despite the ache at the back of her head and the uncomfortable tightness in her chest.

Lena opens her eyes to find the four walls of her own bedroom, bathed in darkness, illuminated only by the subtle stream of light of the moon through the windows. She thinks it would be calming if it weren’t for the fact that she had no idea how she’d come to be there. No idea, that is, until her eyes latch onto the form of a suit-clad woman curled in the armchair resting in the corner. A woman who jumps up the moment she realises Lena is sitting up and makes her way over to the bed.

“Supergirl? What happened?”

“You found yourself in a little trouble,” she replies vaguely, chuckling to herself as she tags on “again” and maybe Lena deserved that one. Although it wasn’t exactly her fault she had a target on her back, she just, maybe, exacerbated it a bit by recklessly ignoring it and attempting to go about her very public daily life without caution.

“And you helped me out of it? Again?” She doesn’t mean to sound so incredulous but her intention does nothing to change the tone of confused wonder the words come out with.

“You still have a few freebies on your tab so...” Supergirl looks oddly cautious of touching her, reaching out slowly before pulling her hand back quickly, like she was afraid that Lena might break at even the slightest of touches (honestly at the rate she was going, it wasn’t completely off the cards).

Supergirl plays with the buttons of the coat she had stripped from Lena’s shoulders instead, inspects the scorch marks with a quiet, contemplative kind of fear, like she knows exactly how close they came to being nothing but dust and a memory tonight. “How do you feel?” She asks, after the silence stretches a breath too long, after Lena imagines she probably thinks a little too much about just how dead they would’ve been if she’d been just a touch slower.

“A little shaken but alive. What about you?” She doesn’t know why she’s being so honest, why she hadn’t immediately put her front back on, decided to pretend like this never happened like she always did. She’s not the only one who looks confused at her choice of words.

Supergirl, on her part, looks somewhat taken aback that someone actually asked her that. That someone could sense she wasn’t as alright as she had to pretend to be, but Lena was familiar with that particular brand of denial, just like she was familiar with a lot of things that evening.

“I know that was kryptonite in his chest. I don’t think I’ll ever forget the particular shade of green that drove Lex mad.” The particular shade of green that changed her life forever. The particular shade of green that led to her being in prison, and subsequently, that explosion in the first place. The particular shade of green that Lena knew meant she wasn’t the only one that nearly died in that hanger.

“We made it out in time,” Supergirl mutters quietly.

“ _We_ ,” Lena repeats with a quiet reverence because she knows Supergirl would have been free and clear if she’d just left Lena, that she wouldn’t have come anywhere close to death, wouldn’t have even felt its hands brush against her back. But she stayed back. She wasted time on Lena. _We made it out in time_. _We_. “Why’d you come? Why do you keep believing in me?”

“I looked into your eyes the first time we met and I just... knew you deserved it.”

“That’s a terrible reason.”

“So I’ve been told.” Supergirl tugs the blanket higher and it’s oddly soft despite the powerful stance she immediately adopts again. Not for the first time Lena wonders what she’s like without the suit. Not for the first time she thinks she probably wears pastel sweaters and chunky glasses. Not for the first time Lena thinks there’s only really one person who believes in her in this city, and that it’s the last person in the world that should.

“Thank you.”

“Sleep.” It’s a demand but it’s tender, and familiar, and warm, and Lena _knows_ , has always _known_. They haven’t known each other long. She hasn’t had Kara, nor Supergirl, in her life for all that long but it didn’t take all that much time to piece things together. Maybe it was the nervous disposition that always lingered beneath the surface. Maybe it was the blind faith. Or her smile.

Maybe she could just see it in her eyes.

* * *

 

**_Small talk, she drives, coffee at midnight, the light reflects the chain on her neck, she says “look up” and your shoulders brush, no proof one touch, you felt enough._ **

“Where exactly are we going?” Lena figures she probably should have asked that when Kara appeared at her apartment door and told her they were going for a late night trip. She definitely should have asked as she allowed Kara to slip a coat around her shoulders and walk her into a car Lena didn’t even know she owned.

“Somewhere other than my apartment,” Kara answers simply and Lena nods along with ease. Escaping awkward situations was something Lena could definitely understand, though she was a little more confused as to what Kara would possibly be avoiding in her own apartment - it was warm, and cosy, and Lena had been gradually stashing expensive alcohol in it over the weeks to enjoy when she found herself there or, in the unlikely event that Kara ever needed a really stiff drink. Although that maybe wasn’t such an unlikely event with the iron grip Kara had on the steering wheel.

“Would you like to talk about it?” Lena offers.

“Would you like to talk about almost dying for the third time this month?” Kara throws back the moment Lena finishes. She should have seen it coming really, should have taken note of the fact that Kara had been hinting for her to talk about it for days - sometimes inconspicuously, sometimes (mostly) incredibly obviously. Kara wasn’t exactly known for her tact.

“I might be so inclined if you share first.”

“A man tried to... court me.” Well that certainly wasn’t surprising. Lena had seen the pictures of the mystery man in a super-suit scarily reminiscent of the same one on Supergirl beside him. She practically felt the exasperation coming through the text Kara had sent cancelling their lunch. She also had eyes. Eyes that were acutely aware that Kara was the prettiest thing they’d ever been aimed at (and they were aimed at her a lot).

“Mike?” Lena tries, willing herself to push all images of the moony-eyed man out of her head the moment they come into it. It’s not that she wasn’t a fan. She just... wasn’t a fan.

“No. Well, yeah, I guess he kinda tried to confess his feelings too, but then it all got a little sidetracked by this guy with a very skewered view of how relationships work and a whole lot of misplaced faith and persistence.” Overly persistent men? That was something that Lena definitely wasn’t a fan of, nor was Kara if her exaggerated eye roll was anything to go by.

“So you’re hiding from two suitors this evening.”

“I actually managed to get the second to back off.”

“Back to just Mike then.” Somehow Lena doesn’t think that would be a relief. She’s certainly not relieved. But that’s mostly due to the fact that she can’t work out from Kara’s face if Mike actually means something to her. Beyond being a time consuming annoyance. “But you don’t want Mike?” Lena asks when Kara responds to her first words with a sigh. She laughs when her question is answered with an even deeper sigh.

“We wouldn’t work. I’ve never had anyone make me so angry.”

“Kara Danvers angry? I’m sorry I can’t imagine it.”

“Hey, I can be angry!” Kara protests but it’s immediately ruined by the way the words squeak from her throat in outrage. It’s more cute than anything.

“Sure you can,” Lena deadpans, smiling when Kara huffs and attempts to shoot a glare Lena’s way from the corner of her eye and only really succeeds in pouting, which once again, far more cute than intimidating. “You’re proving my point here.”

“Well you’ve never done anything to warrant my anger.” Lena can’t imagine that that’s quite true. She built an alien detection device for god’s sake and, whilst Kara seemed to vehemently disagree with its existence - hence Lena promptly scrapping the entire project under the guise of faulty prototypes - she had never been angry. Sad? Yes. Disappointed? Sure. But never angry.

Kara had never once snapped at her. She pleaded, and persuaded, and pouted until her face hurt, but she’d never once raised her voice at Lena, and the more Lena ponders upon that fact, the more she wonders just how much Kara sees. If she watches the way Lena flinches at abrupt sounds, or tenses at the gradual raising of voices. If she knows that Lena has been on the receiving end of enough anger to last a lifetime. If she regulates herself because of all that.

“I am pretty perfect.”

“You’d be more perfect if you’d finally talk about the fact that your mother played on your feelings again and then almost got you killed in a literal explosion only two weeks ago.” Lena will hand it to Kara, she played it well. She walked straight into that one, head first and shoulders high, but that didn’t mean she was immediately going to suddenly open up and spill everything.

“You know a lot for someone who wasn’t there,” Lena tests, eyeing the way Kara tenses up from the corner of her eye. The same way she always tenses up when Lena pushes the boundaries and she hasn’t quite thought of a lie yet (see: the time she claimed she flew on a bus and that her shirt just happened to get caught in a cab door outside L-Corp and that’s why the ripped clothing was casually sitting outside the building instead of in her wardrobe).

“I’m a reporter. I report,” Kara argues defensively. Then she simply waits. Let’s the silence sit until Lena finds it too awkward to not answer the questions she’s been avoiding for days. She vaguely wonders when she allowed Kara to have so much sway upon her, when she decided that Kara was at the top of the list of people she wanted to be proud of her - arguably it was the moment Kara smiled at her with a warmth she’d never experienced before.

“What else is there even to say? It wasn’t the best experience of my life but at least I still have a life.” She was still breathing, still walking, still talking. She had still enjoyed a delightful kale omelette just that morning and got to pet the cat that always slunk through her apartment window on a Tuesday morning looking for extra food and attention. She still got to drive around in a car in the middle of the night with a girl with pretty blue eyes and a charming smile.

She was still _alive_.

“I need you to be more careful,” Kara says solemnly, taking her eyes of the road for a moment to give Lena her full attention. The word choice strikes Lena in the heart. _Need_. Kara _needs_ her to be okay, to be alive. Kara _needs_ her.

Lena can’t meet the intensity of her gaze. She can’t remember the last time she couldn’t meet someone’s eye, the last time she couldn’t build up the courage to stare right back at someone else. But she can’t now. She just can’t and Kara must note the tension because her eyes are back on the road a moment later and she’s joking, “Who else would I write fluff pieces on if you die? You’re literally the only reason Snapper hasn’t fully snapped at me.”

“Ah, so your motives are selfish.”

“Oh, _completely_.”

“In that case, I’ll definitely stay on the alert for any trouble. I wouldn’t want my favourite reporter out of work.” Favourite, otherwise known as, the only reporter in the city who didn’t constantly write pieces about how she accidentally missed the bin with her trash and was therefore singlehandedly destroying the planet.

“That’s all I can really ask for,” Kara concedes, playing unconsciously with the chain hanging round her neck with the hand that isn’t on the wheel.

“You know I’ve never seen you without that.” It tended to stay tucked under her shirt and pressed against her heart but Lena had seen her pull it out on occasion, watched her play with the chain and the pendant with clouded eyes and a pensive expression. She’d never asked about it before, never thought she had the right, never thought it was her place. But there’s something lingering in the air of the car that makes Lena think tonight is a night of asking things you usually wouldn’t.

“It was my mothers.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to pry.” Lena hadn’t said a thing the day Kara confessed she could relate to feeling out of place in a new family; she simply smiled tenderly and wordlessly placed her hand on Kara’s knee in a show of comfort she knew she could never muster well enough with words. After all, what right did she have when she avoided talking about the first years of her life at any cost?

“You didn’t, it’s fine. It’s actually the last thing she gave to me before she died. She told me that it would protect me, that as long as I had it she would always be looking over me. I don’t really take it off because I’m afraid I’ll lose it and then what will be left of her? Other than me and some half blurred memories of what used to be.”

“It’s beautiful,” Lena whispers, thinking of the stuffed bear hidden in the back of her closet and the smile it had brought to her face the day her mother had ‘won’ it for her at the carnival (she always knew she’d simply paid for it because it had caught Lena’s eyes the moment she saw it).

“Here,” Kara says, free fingers fiddling with the clasp at the nape of her neck.

“What are you do-“ Lena tries as Kara is finally successful and gently places the necklace into Lena’s open palm. Lena stares down at the chain in her hand blankly for a second before examining the intricacies, the carvings, the small lettering that she knows isn’t from any human language, and it feels oddly like Kara is sharing something more than just  a necklace with her now.

It’s like Kara is sharing a small part of herself, a small part of a larger truth, like Kara has decided to place more trust in her than most people ever considered. Lena tries to hand it back and is shocked to find Kara’s hand closing her fingers more tightly around it.

“Keep it for a little while. I think you need more protection than me at the moment.”

“But it’s your mothers.”

“I trust you’ll get it back to me with both you and it in one piece,” Kara says with a decisive nod but Lena isn’t so sure. She can’t imagine why Kara would care so much after so few months, why Kara would rush past every obstacle everyone else got stuck behind, why Kara would look past all the stories and the evidence and decide that Lena deserved her trust, deserved her protection. She wasn’t worth it. She wasn’t worth Kara.

“You trust me with too many things,” Lena argues but allows the necklace to rest heavily in her hand for a second, pocketing it gently in the next.

“You don’t trust yourself with enough,” Kara throws back with a small smile before pulling the car over and unbuckling her seatbelt with barely concealed nerves. “We’re here.” Lena unclips her own belt before looking confusedly through the windscreen at the view in front of her.

“A cliff? You aren’t going to try push me off are you?”

“Not with my mother’s necklace, I’m not.”

“Why here?” Lena asks as they climb from the car and she follows Kara’s lead towards the edge without hesitation. They’re a few inches from the ledge when Kara stops and Lena feels her heart lurch at the sight of the drop. She calms down when Kara’s shoulder brushes hers, when a hand slips into her own comfortingly, reassuring her she won’t fall, and if she does, that the girl next to her is actually pretty good at saving people.

“I like to come out here to put everything in perspective. You know, I have these fears and duties and obligations, and that little voice in the back of my head screaming at me to somehow make them all work in tandem, to balance them, and it scares me. But then I come here. I come here and I think about how every little light is another person with all those same thoughts. It makes it all seem a little less intense. Like we’re all suffering through it together.”

“Something tells me your obligations are a little more intense than a lot of those lights.”

“So are yours.”

Lena takes a deep breath, watches Kara follow her lead. It does make her feel better. It makes her feel calmer, grounded, safe. The tension slips from Lena’s face, drops from Kara’s shoulders, and everything just seems _better_. Though that could have nothing to do with the view and everything to do with the fact that she was with Kara.

Kara who always makes her feel trusted, and believed in, and safe. Kara who makes her glance up at a shooting star and make a wish. Kara whose frame is sturdy but soft. Kara whose slight touch makes a shiver run down her spine. Kara who she’s fairly sure she’ll be irrevocably in love with before she can figure out a way to stop it.

She might already be too late.

* * *

**_  
You keep her shirt, she keeps her word, and for once you let go of your fears and your ghosts._ **

 

_I will always be your friend..._

_And I will always protect you..._

_I promise._

Kara takes her back to her place after they’ve sat, tangled together, on her office couch for long enough that Lena has a crick in her neck and Kara has a patch on her blouse where Lena’s tears had come and gone. Lena doesn’t speak a word, doesn’t contest the move, doesn’t question it when Kara pulls up outside her apartment building instead of Lena’s. Lena follows wordlessly. Mind blank. Feet automatic. Her body oddly still despite the vaguely disconcerting buzzing of her bones.

She lost him. Jack. The one person she had during the beginning of the worst part of her life. The first person who really, truly believed she was more than the rumours. The first person she really trusted after Lex and before Kara. Her best friend.

And she lost him.

Lost him just like she lost everybody else in her life who risked caring about her. Just like she’d probably lose Kara despite her promises because eventually she would realise that Lena wasn’t worth the trouble, wasn’t worth her bulletproof trust and unwavering belief, and she wouldn’t be wrong. She wouldn’t be wrong because caring for Lena was a death sentence, believing in her was the signature on the insanity plea. Kara should just cut her losses and run.

Kara deserved better. _More_.

But Kara isn’t running, nor is she hiding. Instead she’s placing the softest pyjamas Lena’s ever felt into her hands and pushing her towards her bed. Lena follows the wordless orders numbly, continuing on with the silence she’s created. She cautiously sits on the edge of the bed, pulling at the loose thread on the pyjama pants and wondering when everything will become too much for her to handle, when something finally pushes her off the edge.

“You should put those on. Sleeping in a skirt is never fun and I speak from experience,” Kara urges, edging closer slowly, with immense trepidation. “Don’t tell me the most powerful woman in National City needs help getting dressed.” Maybe if it were someone else speaking, some other situation, Lena would have taken the opportunity to send Kara her signature smile and make some comment or another about how she’d love a hand. As the situation stands, she attempts eye contact for a second or two before standing back up, fingers still fiddling with errant threads.

“I can’t-“ She starts before Kara quickly interrupts with a gasp and an apologetic smile.

“Oh gosh, don’t worry, I won’t look. See.” Kara puts her hands over her eyes, spins her body towards the wall for good measure. Lena takes the opportunity to change, folds her clothes slowly and precisely when she’s finished, placing them gently on the floor beside her shoes. The sense of order giving her some comfort. She quietly calls Kara’s name when she’s done, allows the girl in question to shuffle her under the duvet and spend a ridiculous amount of time tucking her securely in.

Kara turns to leave the moment she seems to have decided Lena is cocooned well enough. Lena whispers “stay” before she can stop herself, catches Kara’s hand with her own trembling fingers before she can second guess herself. She tenses as Kara’s turns back to her, despite the fact that not one part of her thinks she’ll refuse the request. She knows Kara will stay. She doesn’t know how. She doesn’t know why. She just knows that Kara will.

And she does, but she doesn’t climb under the covers like Lena expected, doesn’t lie down awkwardly by Lena’s side. What she does do is sit atop the duvet, her back pressed solidly against the headboard and her arms crossed over her chest. Lena doesn’t have to ask to know what she’s doing, doesn’t have to ask to figure out that the way Kara’s eyes switch from door to window and back again is just another piece of proof that she’s acting as a guard. Lena’s guard.

“You don’t have to keep a lookout,” Lena says, her chest fluttering a little at the encouraging smile Kara sends her way as her head sharply turns towards the sounds coming from Lena’s mouth.

“I know I don’t _have_ to,” Kara retorts and Lena immediately realises that this is a fight she won’t win. Honestly, she doesn’t even think it’s a fight she wants to have. It’s comforting, she notes, knowing that Kara is by her side, that she’ll protect her at any cost, that she already has a few times. It’s definitely comforting to know that Kara standing guard isn’t just for show, that, if it actually came down to it, Kara could follow up on any threats she made (even if it meant she would have to finally confirm Lena’s suspicions that she was a super powered alien).

“You’re not going to stop are you?” Lena asks, looking up at the stubborn curve of Kara’s brow, the determined clench of her jaw, and the resolute softness that underpins it all. It’s a good look for her, Lena thinks. A good mix of Kara Danvers and Supergirl. Something in between that Lena knows must be the real Kara, the one before the tragedy, the one behind the scenes.

“No,” she replies simply and Lena can’t stop a small smile from passing over her lips.

“Thank you.”

“You don’t need to thank me.  I promised, and I don’t break my promises, _especially not to you_ ,” Kara whispers the last part almost imperceptibly but Lena hears it. Somehow she doesn’t think she was supposed to but the words find her ears regardless.

She doesn’t question them, doesn’t have the energy to think about the conviction of the words, what they mean in the long run. So she lets them hang in the air between her and Kara, allows herself a moment of not over-thinking, not worrying. She lifts her head into Kara’s lap and falls asleep to the tender crush of Kara’s fingers through her hair.

Lena leaves the next day with Kara’s t-shirt hidden under her blouse and the knowledge that maybe, _just maybe,_ she was worth it because if Kara Danvers could be bothered to care so much about her, then there had to be at least something good in her.

_There had to._

* * *

 

**_One night, she wakes, strange look on her face, pauses, then says, you’re my best friend._ **

It’s strange to not be the one who’s broken. It’s strange to pick up the pieces instead of falling apart.

Kara had saved her again. She had risked her life coming aboard a ship ruled by an insane woman and saved her. Then she got herself stranded because she made the mistake Lena had made one too many times in her life - trusting Lillian Luthor. For a moment she thought she would once again be the person who lost the thing that grounded them, for a few moments she thought Kara would die on that spaceship and Lena would never get the chance to tell her all the things she’d been keeping close to her chest.

She’d pleaded for her mother to send her back up, watched her mother’s face contort like Lena had slapped it the second Lena confessed she knew exactly who wore that red cape and was on some sort of heroic crusade for justice. It had almost felt good. Almost. Until she remembered that Kara’s life was on the line and she was stuck with the only alien she really hated (and not even on the basis of his DNA, he was just an idiot. An idiot romantically interested in Kara).

But Kara had saved herself. Proved herself. Risked herself in another fight that she took upon herself in order to save everyone else. And Lena had built a device. A weapon. A weapon that she never wanted Kara to have to use but one that was ultimately necessary. A weapon that Kara was forced to use and one that had torn her beliefs in two.

So this time Kara was broken and Lena was attempting with all her might to pick up the pieces.

This time it was Lena who sent Alex away to be with Maggie, promised that she would have Kara’s back in the meantime. This time Lena was the one who had shuffled Kara into her home and into her bed. This time it was Lena who had plied Kara with hot tea and smothered her with far too fluffy blankets. This time it was Lena who sat, running her fingers through Kara’s hair soothingly, and attempted to comfort her during a time when she seemed to be unable to be comforted.

“Am I a bad person?” Kara asks after a pregnant pause and Lena feels her hand still, notes that her heart follows suit for a moment before it settles back into its regular rhythm.

“The fact that you’re even asking that tells me the answer is no.”

“I killed people.”

“With a weapon I built.” Lena created the dispersion device. She put the button into Supergirl’s hands. Into Kara’s hands. She gave her the choice because she trusted she would make the right decision in a way she didn’t trust herself, a way she definitely didn’t trust her mother.

Lena trusted Kara. Which is why, when Supergirl threw herself into Lena’s arms sobbing about what she’d done and rambling in a way only Kara Danvers did, she didn’t ask for an explanation, didn’t wonder why Kara never formally told her about her secret. She just accepted it, moved on, and brought the other woman into her home. She didn’t need Kara to rip her shirt open, or throw herself off of a building. Lena knew, and Kara knew, and they’d stopped pretending a long time ago anyway.

“But I’m the one who pushed the button. I’m the one who sentenced them to die. I’m the reason Mon-El is stuck in some undetermined place in space, alone and afraid. It’s _my_ fault.” Lena knows what Kara is really thinking, what she can’t _stop_ thinking. She’s imagining herself in that ship, stuck in the phantom zone, and surrounded by nothing but silence and space. She’s imagining her worst nightmare and the fact that she’s the reason someone else is living it.

“You did the right thing,” Lena assures and Kara begins to interrupt. “ _You did the right thing_. You saved all of us and yes, you made a difficult decision, but it was the right one, and the fact that you’re feeling remorse for those people is exactly how I know you aren’t a bad person. It’s how I know you’re a hero.”

“You think too much of me,” Kara sighs.

“You don’t think enough,” Lena replies with a soft smile.

Kara drifts to sleep not long after but Lena can’t find it in herself to follow suit. Her mind is too full with too many thoughts, too busy thinking about how she’s supposed to convince Kara she’s not a killer when she’s the poster child for blaming herself for things outside of her control, how to convince Kara she’s not a bad person, that she shouldn’t waste her time thinking upon a decision she was forced to make by people who didn’t deserve the level of compassion Kara always displayed without fault, who didn’t deserve her guilt and her tears.

Too busy thinking about how to make it better.

Kara wakes up just as Lena feels herself growing crazy at her own thoughts. She doesn’t say anything immediately. At first, she twists her body, until the back of her head is resting on Lena’s lap and she can stare up at Lena’s face. It causes Lena’s hands to slip from their place in Kara’s hair, forces them to glide along her jaw instead. Lena catches Kara’s eyes then. Eyes that hold a look that Lena has trouble placing, but one that she knows she’s seen before, even if it feels like it was far too long ago.

“Lena, I...” She pauses and Lena knows what words are meant to occupy that space. She knows what the look in Kara’s eyes means, knows that she has the same one in her own when she forgets that people are watching, that she should be keeping her cards hidden. But Kara doesn’t finish that particular thought and Lena doesn’t press, simply accepting the finishing, “you’re my best friend” for what it is and responding with a smile.

“And you’re mine.”

It means more.

She knows it means more.

* * *

**_You understand now why they lost their minds and fought the wars, and why you spent your whole life trying to put it into words._ **

She can’t find her.

Lena can’t find Kara.

She’s called a thousand times, bashed on her door half as many, spent the last of her reserves knocking on Alex Danvers door and being met with a similar eerie silence, and she’s worried. She’s worried because Kara always answers her calls. Always. Sometimes with an obvious smile and a casual hello. Sometimes breathless and dressed as her alter ego while Lena watches her television bemused as the superhero takes her call in the middle of a fight (she may have tested it a few times).

But Kara always picks up.

And now... nothing.

She can feel herself losing it. Her head has taken one too many dark turns and she’s a little afraid she won’t be able to pull herself back out. What if Lillian had taken her again? What if this time, when Kara was as powerless as the regular humans who walked the earth, her mother had taken it upon herself to rid the world of Krypton’s last daughter? What if she never saw Kara again? What if the last thing she said to her was about ice cream and not that she’d been falling head first in love with her for months and couldn’t even bear to think about living without her?

_What if...? What if...? What if...?_

Her mind is running rampant in desolate circles. She knows she should calm herself down, that she should take a moment to think rationally, go back to Catco to see if Kara was there, ask her friends. Instead she allows the panic to swallow her. Instead she smashes bottle after bottle of what her father called ‘the good stuff’ against her office wall until her eyes clock the card on her desk.

She knows who it is the moment she sees the monogrammed _M.E._ on the paper and perhaps she should have figured it out earlier. Maybe she should have thought about the threats he’d made the last time she foiled his plans or the thoughtful way he eyed Kara as she helped Lena every step of the way, standing by her side, protecting her legacy and her name, making her feel like she just might be worthy of respect and belief. Maybe she should have considered that she could be the very reason Kara was in trouble - she did seem to attract it after all.

But she doesn’t really take the time to consider anything beyond the address printed on the card and the ominous scrawl that told her to come alone. Why did they always insist you come alone?

If you asked Lena how she made her way there she couldn’t tell you the details. She could tell you that she sent a text to Alex Danvers that she was about to do something stupid before she rode a wave of determination all the way to an abandoned warehouse (because _of course_ ). She could tell you that for the first two minutes of driving (way above the speed limit) the race of her heart had an obvious tinge of panic to it. Fear.  She was terrified that she’d be too late, that something terrible would’ve happened to Kara, that Edge would have followed his usual routine of taking things too far.

But then she saw red.

Then she thought of Kara helpless like never before. Kara who deserved nothing more than everything but was constantly dealt bad hands in life. Kara who she couldn’t live without. Kara who was in this place because Lena couldn’t find it in herself to cut her off, because for once Lena had decided to be selfish and let personal feelings get in the way of sensible decision making. Those were the thoughts that had her reaching into the glove box of her car and pulling out the gun she‘d held to Morgan Edge once before.

“Ah, Lena, finally. I was beginning to think you hadn’t gotten my message,” Lena was greeted with as she stepped inside, gun tucked into the waistband of her trousers and fingers itching to pull the trigger. She forgets all about that for a moment though as she takes in the sight before her. Kara. Supergirl. Hanging by her hands from a chain, suspended just high enough off the floor that her feet couldn’t quite reach, the reddening of her wrists evidently showing the strain.

But it’s not her wrists that Lena stops to make any real note of. It’s her head. More specifically the way her chin was tucked into her chest like she couldn’t bear to hold it up any longer. Lena could see the shallow breaths she was struggling to take, the tremor in her hands as they hung limp from her wrists. She could smell the blood. That sickening iron scent that she never once associated with Kara, that she had never even dared to imagine coming from the supposedly invulnerable woman.

Except Lena knew exactly what it took to make her vulnerable.

And Edge seemingly did to.

Lena can barely stand to look at the particular shade of green she cursed every day.

“Why are you doing this?” Lena asks (demands really) in such a tone that from an outsider observer may seem strong, but one that she knew herself to be reserved for moments when she was trying to hold everything in, for times when she was trying to seem collected when she was anything but.

“Leverage,” Edge responds simply, with a smirk on his face that holds no signs of remorse or regret and Lena feels sick. Sick that he could treat a life as something trivial. Sick that he could turn a corporate disagreement and bitter rivalry to something so dark. Sick that he would dare turn Kara into some pawn in their chess match like she was something to be risked, discarded, manipulated.

“She’s a person.”

“A person who obviously means a lot to you.” Lena takes a short glance at Kara, feels her jaw clench once more at the sight, and knows that no matter how strong she tries to pretend she is, she can’t hide her affection for the superhero, that she has never quite been able to. Edge, on his part, widens his grin victoriously at Lena’s lack of retort. “I have to admit, it took me a while to figure out your ultimate weakness. At first I thought it was your legacy, then your morals, and then I realised it was something far easier to exploit – _love_.”

Lena doesn’t even try to hide the way she flinches at the word. She knows she wouldn’t be able to. She doesn’t even try to deny it because she can’t. She can’t stand there, looking at Kara’s almost lifeless form, and pretend it isn’t causing a storm to rage inside her, that it isn’t setting a tornado loose on her wooden heart. Because it is. And she does. She does love her. And she should’ve seen this coming, should’ve realised that, in the end, everyone she loved was ruined because of her.

“I’ll do anything you want if you just let her go.”

“Well that went better than planned. You should know that’s a very big promise.”

“A promise she shouldn’t be making.” Lena’s eyes dart frantically towards Kara as she hears the words. She almost feels a sense of elation at the sound until she catches sight of Kara’s face - the strain in her jaw as she attempts to catch Lena’s eye, the crimson smeared across her cheeks, the litany of cuts and bruises painted across her face. She looks small. If Lena were asked to describe Kara in that moment she would say that she looks _small_ and that fact scares her to no end.

“Kara-“

“Fantastic. Lena here can finally see the consequences of not agreeing.” Edge presses a button on the console to his right and Lena gasps at the sound of an electrical current running through Kara’s chains, at the sight of her writhing and screaming for it to end despite the obvious attempts to keep her pain inside, to pretend she wasn’t affected in order to deny Edge the satisfaction he was evidently getting from the whole ordeal.

“Stop! I already said I’ll do whatever you want,” Lena shouts but Edge simply smirks and turns a dial to up the voltage. “Stop. Now,” she continues to demand, her hand making its way to the handle of her gun and pointing it towards Edge to make her conviction abundantly clear. Lena grips it harder at the sight of excitement in his eyes, the daring twitch of his eyebrows that says he thinks this is a game, one that he believes himself to be winning.

Maybe he was right.

“We both know you won’t do it.”

“No we don’t.” Lena clicks the safety off. Steps closer.

“Once a Luthor, always a Luthor,” he spits out the way most people do but, where Lena usually searches within herself to disagree, she can’t quite make herself this time because maybe he wasn’t wrong, maybe she did finally understand why her family did the things they did.

Sure, they had done terrible things. And sure, they had fought for all the wrong reasons, chose the wrong side for all the wrong causes. But she gets it. The belief. They believed so strongly in something that it drove them to insane levels. Believed so strongly that, they could justify any wrongful action in the name of the greater good of their cause. Even murder.

And Lena finally believed in something. Someone.

The same someone who finally believed in her.

“Lena, don’t.” Lena’s eyes gravitate towards Kara’s own as she listens to the choked words. “This isn’t you. You’re not this. _You are more than this_.” Her eyes fall back on Edge. Her finger bounces thoughtfully on the trigger. She could do it. She could end his life then and there; assure that he couldn’t ever come for her or Kara ever again. She could.

“What if I’m not?” She croaks out.

“You are,” Kara says resolutely. “You are good, and kind and I believe in you.”

“What if that’s not enough?” What if, when it really came down to it, even Kara wasn’t enough to pull her away from her dark side? What if she finally gave into the fire inside her like the rest of her bloodline? What if one person, even if it was Kara, wasn’t enough to fix what was broken inside of her? What if she couldn’t pull herself from her own head?

“Let it be. Let it be enough until you can believe in yourself.”

“Not that this isn’t heart-warming but I don’t really have time for this whole feel good pep talk.” The next few moments rush by at a break neck pace. Lena barely even takes the time to think as Edge slips his own gun from his jacket and her finger squeezes definitively. Once. Then again. She watches the first bullet knock the gun from Edge’s hand, the second slamming resolutely into his knee and sending him to the floor with a cry of agony.

She doesn’t really register any of it as she moves to kick the gun from his reach and turn off the kryptonite emitter by his side. She could enjoy the look of pain on his face after Kara was safely back on her own two feet, which she is in the next few seconds (beyond the little bit of her that’s leaning on Lena for support).

“How...?” Kara asks with breathless wonder and Lena allows herself a smile at the look of pride she can see in her friend’s eyes.

“Chess wasn’t my only hobby as a child,” she says with a wink before edging closer to whisper conspiratorially, “you should see me with a bow and arrow.”

“I’m not sure I’d survive that,” Kara replies with a dazed look in her eyes that Lena decides she’ll attempt to decipher later. For now, she brushes Kara’s hair from her eyes and smiles softly at the visible return of colour to her cheeks and the already healing marks.

Alex Danvers appears not long after, followed by a swarm of armed men, and brandishing her phone in Lena’s face with a rant about not leaving cryptic messages and going on reckless rescue missions – though Lena mostly just focuses on the ‘thank you’ it all ends with as Alex takes a mental note of the damage to Kara’s face and body, swallowing harshly as she realises the extent.

Lena takes it as a sign of acceptance when, after Alex has slapped Edge in cuffs and thrown him more than roughly into the back of a van, she allows Lena to come along for the ride and sit beside Kara as she rambles about the science behind the sun lamps that help her heal.

Lena will admit that the DEO is spectacular.

Though not as spectacular as Kara’s smile as she grins at finally being allowed to show Lena around.

* * *

 

**_So it goes, you two are dancing in a snow globe, go round and round, and you keep the picture of her in your office downtown._**  

_“So I thought, ‘what do you buy the woman who can buy anything she wants’ and, whilst my first thought was a bulletproof vest, I thought we could do something instead. So, are you up for it?”_

_“With you? Always.”_

_“Then grab your coat, Miss Lena Luthor, because your Christmas present awaits.”_

Lena thinks back to that day as she stares at the photo on her desk. She should really be working. She should be going through the files Jess had left on her desk that morning marked urgent or working on her speech for, yet another, press conference that she was sure to be attacked at. But she’s not. Instead she’s staring at a frame on her desk and thinking about Kara Danvers.

Ice skating. She’d never gone before, never even thought about it since she was a child, but she supposes she hadn’t thought about a lot of things until Kara tumbled into her life. She was unsteady at first. No. She was unsteady until the end. It’s just that, somewhere between the third minute of her clutching the side rail and her first attempt at breaking free resulting in her falling straight over and blushing harshly, Kara had taken pity on her and taken her hand for support. Lena didn’t complain when she never let go like she said she eventually would.

The picture is one of her favourites, probably because it’s evidence of one of the best days of her life. Flushed cheeks. Bright smiles. Flakes of fake snow sprinkled gently into their hair and on their shoulders. They look carefree and happy. Kara looks beautiful. The kind of beautiful that makes Lena forget she’s supposed to be running a multi-billion dollar company and instead spend the day mooning over some girl like she was back in AP Chemistry staring at the back of Pamela Isley’s head.

She knows she should stop. One because Jess had already rolled her eyes at her and sighed exasperatingly at least five times that morning. And two because Kara would be arriving for their lunch date (that wasn’t a date) at any moment and Lena couldn’t very well have some doe-eyed look on her face when she walked in that couldn’t be easily explained away.

She’s resorted to counting the ticks of her clock by the time Jess shows Kara in just to stop herself drifting. Although, her nonchalant facade is immediately destroyed the second her face lights up at the sight of the other woman walking through the door. She glares at the laughter Jess stifles behind her hand before softening and gesturing for Kara to sit whilst she gathers her things.

She’s distracted from slipping her arms into her coat when she hears Kara gaps excitedly.

“Is this a photo? And a framed one at that. What have you finally deemed worthy enough to be-“ Kara stops the moment she turns it round, looking helplessly confused as she takes it in, her brow crinkling the exact way Lena had come to find so ineffably charming.

 Lena had a feeling this would be the reaction, had a feeling that in the moment she wouldn’t be able to conjure up a suitable enough excuse as to why she had the photo, had a feeling she wouldn’t be able to squeeze the words ‘because you’re my best friend’ past her lips. And yet she’d placed the photo at the forefront of her desk anyhow. Consequences be damned.

“You,” Lena answers simply and they both allow the silence to settle for a while before Kara gently places the frame back down where she finds it. She stands then and, for a second, Lena worries Kara’s feet will lead her back out the door but instead she inches closer until she all but strides towards where Lena is standing and inhales deeply, steeling herself for some unknown event.

“I love you,” Kara says. No pretence. No grandeur. No breath in Lena’s lungs either. No natural rhythm to her erratic heart or steadiness of her gaze as it jumps from Kara’s eyes to her mouth and back again because she can’t quite believe what she just heard. But maybe she can. Maybe she can believe it. Maybe it’s been blindingly obvious for a while if she thinks about it.

“Well that’s convenient because I love you too.”

“Yeah?” Kara tests.

“Yeah,” Lena assures. Kara grins for a second before painting her smile onto Lena’s lips with the type of kiss Lena always assumed was only meant for movies and romance novels. Her cheeks hurt from smiling when Kara pulls away but she’s not complaining.

She leans in to kiss Kara again.

...

Definitely no complaints.

**Author's Note:**

> c--and--b


End file.
